Gabriel Boric
Gabriel Boric Font is a Chilean politician who has served as the 37th president of Chile since 2022. A socialist, he was previously a member of the Chamber of Deputies for two consecutive terms from 2014 to 2022.
Boric rose to prominence as a student leader while studying law at the University of Chile, heading its student federation during the 2011 protests. He was first elected to the Chamber as an independent in 2013 and re-elected in 2017 as part of the Broad Front coalition. In 2018, he co-founded the Social Convergence party, which was a member of the Broad Front before the coalition later merged into a single political party. During the 2019 civil unrest, Boric helped broker the agreement that led to the October 2020 constitutional referendum.
In December 2021, he won the presidency by defeating José Antonio Kast in the second round of voting with 55.9% of the vote. Upon taking office, Boric became the youngest president in Chile's history and is currently the tenth-youngest serving head of state worldwide.
Early life
Family
Gabriel Boric was born in Punta Arenas in 1986. On his father's side, Boric hails from a Croatian-Chilean family with roots in Ugljan, an island off the Adriatic coast of Croatia. Despite his ancestors' migration from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Chile in 1897, Boric maintains connections with his relatives residing in Ugljan. His great-grandfather, Juan Boric, along with his brother Simón, arrived in Punta Arenas around 1885, being among the initial ten Croats to settle in Magallanes. They ventured into the Tierra del Fuego gold rush in the Magallanes region, spending time on the islands south of the Beagle Channel. Subsequently, Juan Boric briefly returned to Ugljan to marry, and brought his wife, Natalia Crnosija, back to Magallanes, where ten of their eleven children were born. Boric's grandfather, Luis Boric Crnosija, born in 1908, was one of them.Gabriel Boric's father, Luis Boric Scarpa, is a chemical engineer who served as a government employee at italic=no for over 40 years. His mother, María Soledad Font Aguilera, is of Catalan descent. Gabriel Boric has two brothers, Simón and Tomás. In the Patagonian region of Magallanes, Boric's granduncle, Vladimiro Boric, became the first bishop of Punta Arenas. Another granduncle, Roque Scarpa Martinich, assumed the role of the first intendant of the Magallanes Region following the military dictatorship. Both Roque Scarpa and Gabriel Boric's father were members of the Christian Democratic Party. Yet another granduncle, Roque Esteban Scarpa, won the 1980 Chilean National Prize for Literature, and his granduncle was also a writer.
Education
Boric studied at The British School in his hometown before moving to Santiago in 2004 to attend law school at the University of Chile. He completed his coursework in 2009, coinciding with his appointment as the President of the Law School students' union. Afterward, he focused on preparing for his final exam and fulfilling his mandatory internship. However, he did not pass the test in 2011 and chose not to retake it. Boric did not obtain a law degree and has expressed in interviews that he never intended to pursue a career as a lawyer, instead aspiring to become a writer.During his university years, Boric had the opportunity to work as an assistant to Professor José Zalaquett in his human rights course. Zalaquett commended Boric for his inclination to question and doubt, as revealed in an interview.
Political career
Student politics
In 1999 and 2000, Boric played an active role in re-establishing the Federation of Secondary School Students of Punta Arenas. While attending university, he became a member of the political collective Autonomous Left, originally known as Autonomous Students. In 2008, he served as an advisor to the Students' Union of the Law Department, and in 2009, he assumed the presidency. During his tenure, he led a 44-day protest against the dean, Roberto Nahum. From 2010 to 2012, Boric represented students as a university senator.Boric ran for the presidency of the University of Chile Student Federation in the 5–6 December 2011 elections, as part of the Creando Izquierda list. He won the election with 30.52% of the votes, defeating Camila Vallejo, who was the incumbent president of the federation and sought re-election as part of the Communist Youth of Chile list. As president of the FECh, Boric played a prominent role in the second phase of the student protests that originated in 2011, emerging as one of the primary spokespersons for the Federation of Chilean Students. In 2012, he was featured on the list of 100 young leaders of Chile, published by El Sábado magazine of the newspaper El Mercurio in collaboration with Adolfo Ibáñez University.
Member of Chamber of Deputies (2014–2022)
Boric participated in the 2013 parliamentary elections as an independent candidate for District 60, currently District 28, representing the Region of Magallanes and the Chilean Antarctic. He achieved a significant victory with 15,418 votes, the highest number received by any candidate in the region. Notably, Boric's successful election outside of an electoral coalition was widely acknowledged by the media, as it broke through the Chilean binomial election system. On 11 March 2014, Boric was sworn in as a member of the Chamber of Deputies.During his first term, Boric actively served on several commissions, including Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples; Extreme Zones and the Chilean Antarctic; and Labour and Social Security. He was part of the "student bench", which consisted of other young elected deputies, such as Camila Vallejo, Giorgio Jackson, and Karol Cariola. Together, they played a prominent role in debates concerning the educational reforms proposed by Michelle Bachelet's second government. Boric's popularity in Chile was reflected in various opinion polls.
In 2016, the Autonomous Left disbanded due to disagreements regarding the collective's future. Boric advocated for a more institutional approach and dialogue with Bachelet's center-left government. However, the leadership of the Autonomous Left preferred to focus on student politics. Boric and his allies, driven by a "compulsion for rapid rise," according to Carlos Ruiz of the Autonomous Left, founded the Autonomist Movement. They intended to collaborate with other political forces and establish a new leftist coalition similar to the Uruguayan Broad Front. The Autonomist Movement achieved favorable electoral results, as exemplified by Jorge Sharp, one of Boric's close friends, who was elected mayor of Valparaíso in the 2016 municipal elections.
In January 2017, Boric's movement, together with other new parties and collectives including Jackson's Democratic Revolution, launched the Chilean Broad Front. Boric played a leadership role in Beatriz Sánchez's campaign during the 2017 presidential election. After Sánchez placed third and failed to qualify for the second round, Boric reluctantly supported Alejandro Guillier as a means to defeat Sebastián Piñera, although Piñera ultimately emerged victorious.
In the 2017 general election, Boric sought re-election as an independent candidate supported by the Humanist Party, one of the founding members of the Broad Front. He received 18,626 votes, an increase compared to 2013, making him the second most voted deputy in the country at that time. Boric served on the Commissions for Extreme Zones and the Chilean Antarctic, as well as Constitution, Legislation, Justice, and Regulation.
The Broad Front's commendable performance in the 2017 elections, where it became Chile's third largest political force, prompted the coalition and its members to undergo reorganization. In 2018, the Autonomist Movement, along with the Libertarian Left and other smaller movements, decided to merge and establish a political party called Social Convergence.
Role in the
On 18 October 2019, protests against the increased tariffs in the Santiago transport system sparked the Estallido social, the largest civil unrest in the country since the end of the military dictatorship. As riots erupted in various parts of the capital, President Piñera declared a state of emergency in Santiago, which was later extended to all major cities as the protests escalated. The protesters incorporated demands concerning the high cost of living, corruption, and inequality, among other issues.Boric emerged as a vocal critic of the government's response and strongly opposed the use of the Chilean Armed Forces to suppress the protests. He even confronted a group of soldiers deployed in Plaza Italia. Additionally, he played a significant role as one of the accusers in the impeachment trial against Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick. Chadwick was found guilty of serious constitutional violations and a failure to safeguard human rights during the state of emergency, resulting in a five-year ban from public office. Boric also supported the impeachment of President Piñera, although the attempt was ultimately rejected.
Despite being a prominent critic of the government's handling of the protests, Boric was willing to engage in dialogue with other political forces to find a solution to the crisis. Conversations between him and right-wing politicians contributed to an agreement that paved the way for the establishment of the Constitutional Convention, tasked with writing a new Constitution. On 15 November 2019, the "Agreement for Social Peace and the New Constitution" was signed by the presidents of the political parties represented in parliament, excluding the Communist Party and some members of the Broad Front, including Social Convergence. Boric signed the agreement as an individual, which led to accusations against him from some members of his party. As a result, several individuals, including his personal friend Jorge Sharp, resigned from the party. Other parties such as the Green Ecologist Party, the Humanist Party, the Equality Party, the Pirate Party, and the Libertarian Left also opposed the agreement and left the Broad Front.
On 20 December, Boric faced an attack at Parque Forestal where individuals threw spit and beer at him while calling him a "traitor" and "sell-out" due to his involvement in the "Agreement for Social Peace and a New Constitution" reached with traditional politicians. Despite the provocation, Boric remained composed and did not leave his position.